L'Academy Preschool
Community SubscriberKensington, CA
At L'Academy, we focus on the whole child while taking a holistic approach to language learning through meaningful activities. We currently offer Spanish and Mandarin languages. serving children from 5 months through 6 years. At L'Academy Kensington, we believe a child should play! Our curriculum is focused on developing the whole child in a fun and loving way. On a daily basis, our children practice their social and communication skills. Throughout our curriculum of meaningful activities, our children are shown pathways to become confident, creative, expressive, and compassionate citizens of the world.
Each month, we dive deep into the arts as well, highlighting a famous composer, artist and Aesop Fable.
Parent Q&A
Parent Reviews
Parents, please Sign in to post a review on this page.L'Academy has been a wonderful, supportive place for our two preschoolers. We started our daughter in 2021 when she turned 2. She just took part in L'Academy's sweet graduation ceremony. She misses L'Academy but it prepared her well prepared for kindergarten. She loves to come back and visit when we pick up our son, who is starting his second year at L'Academy. He gets a big hug every morning from his teacher, has plenty of time to play outside, and enjoys show-and-tell and the other class activities for 3-year-olds. The Director, Rachel, is very warm and welcoming. She's brought back more community events, which are a great way to meet other parents. Her newsletters and communications help us feel connected and informed. The teachers also post photos and updates to an app daily. The teachers clearly pay a lot of attention to each child -- we can have a conversation with them each day on any small issues, our son's mood, nap, etc. They also were very helpful with his potty training transition and gave him (and us!) confidence about it.
And as others have said, the logistics are great for busy parents -- very few vacation days each year, good daily hours, and healthy food is provided -- all very valuable! Feel free to contact me with any questions about L'Academy.
We are incredibly grateful for our experience at L'Academy! Over the past 2.5 years, our child has flourished in ways we couldn't have imagined. He's built strong, meaningful relationships with all the teachers, made numerous friends, enhanced his social and communication skills, and even improved his Spanish. Ms. Rachel, the center director, is wonderful! She and the caring teachers--special shout out to Ms. Elizabeth and Ms. Tatiana--have created such a welcoming, warm, and engaging environment for the children. We really appreciate the frequent updates about meals, naps, events, special activities, and general school news. It keeps us in the loop and makes us feel connected. As our child transitions to TK, saying goodbye to L'Academy is bittersweet. However, we are confident that our child is well-prepared for the next steps given the nurturing foundation provided by L'Academy.
L'Academy has been the perfect transition school for our 4 year old who was too young for TK. He has had Spanish education his whole life but this is the first year he is truly speaking it. The kids play in english but the lessons are bilingual. They feed the kids snack, lunch and breakfast. There are accessible potties in the classroom. The community is warm and diverse. We have enjoyed Rachel the director and Eva the interim director as well as all of the teachers. Our kid has connected with his classroom teachers and is warmly greeted and connected to a few of the other teachers as well. Reach out if you would like to connect more!
We love L’Academy in Kensington!! Our son started when it first opened in the fall of 2021, and after 3 years he is graduating this fall. It took them a full year to work out some kinks, but it’s in a really good place now. The Director - Rachel - is the most kind, caring human and an excellent communicator. The teachers all seem very happy, the kids love them. And logistically it can’t be beat - open year round except one week around winter holiday, they provide all snacks and (healthy) meals, hours are 7:30am-5:30pm. There is a great balance of art, free play, education (letters, writing), and enrichments. I can’t say enough good thing about this school and I hope they are able to recruit more kiddos once a big crew graduates this fall. Happy to answer any questions parents might have about our experience, just message me!
We enrolled our son at L' Academy last August and we couldn't be happier. He loves all the teachers and the director, Ms. Rose, is wonderful. She keeps us informed on anything going on at the school and came up with a plan to help our son transition into the class for his new age group after he turned three. The school updates an app throughout the day so we can see when/what our kids eat, their nap schedule and they also upload pictures of them participating in fun daily activities. Our son has made some great friends and genuinely enjoys going to school everyday! Some other things worth mentioning: the hours are 7:30am-5:30pm - not many schools have both an early start AND a pick up time after 5pm, they provide healthy lunches and snacks, the school is very clean and organized and they have a very reasonable holiday schedule. This school checks so many boxes - we highly recommend it to anyone looking for a caring and safe environment for their little ones.
Our daughter has attended L'Academy for the past year, since she was 2 years old. We love it! Ms. Rose is a superb site director--she's experienced as a manager and teacher. Our daughter's teachers are all very kind and welcoming. Our daughter comes home happy EVERY day (this is not an exaggeration) and has made many friends at the school. Perhaps most important to us, she has blossomed from a shy girl to an effusive, exuberant girl. This is due to L'Academy giving her a safe and loving place to grow. Thank you all!
Parents who are interested in language immersion preschools:
A new preschool just opened up on the Berkeley/Kensington border which offers both Spanish and Mandarin language immersion. They are new and therefore not many people know about it. Right now the number of students signed up for mandarin immersion is small and they are looking for more students.
Thought I would pass along the info as I know that there are often long waitlists for other Mandarin immersion programs in the area. Here is their website:
https://www.lacademyschools.com/locations/kensington-berkeley
We visited the other week so happy to answer any questions you might have.
We left the school in July 2022 when there were some issues of communication with the former director. At the same time we got notice of getting off the waitlist for our dream school- a Persian immersion school- so we left. However, we have had our kid back at L’Academy for a a week or so for coverage when our other school was closed and it’s a night and day difference. The new director is great and everyone there is very happy. We’ve heard good things since the admin change.
We’ve been at L’academy since January 2022 when our little one was 2. There has been a lot of teacher and administrator turn over (especially in the first 9 months of 2022) and we are not sure if it was going to work out. The owners brought in new administrators and things have been much better with stronger communication, lots of activities and even gatherings for the families. Rachel—the current administrator is fantastic and most teachers have stuck around for the last 6-9 months. We appreciate the consistent schedule and meals and our little one is learning a lot. A potential downside is that they do seem to be maximizing the space and keep adding more kids and infants so inside space is getting more crowded. Hope this helps